Automated brewery - Visual Basic and animations

[EccentricDyslexic]

Hi chaps, i generaly post on Jims, but not many seem as interesed in my automated home brew set up, so i thought Id try here too. :

Id like to add an animation to my VB.net program, i can use Dia and would like to have walking ants type fluid flow animations to show at a glance what is happening at diferent times in the brew process. To do this in vb is very complicated, it seems easier to make a gif and just replace one with another....can anyone advise? :hmm:

Cheers :drink:

Steve

 

[phettebs]

Not sure of the details you have in mind but you could try using pictureboxes and the backcolor property to give the illusion of motion. For example, you could lay out 10 rectangular picturebox controls end to end with a little white space between. Set the backcolor of all of the odd numbered ones to black and set the backcolor of all of the even numbered ones to yellow. Then use the thread class' sleep method (or some other way to pause) and then alternate the colors from even to odd. This will appear as if they are moving in ant line fashion.

Caveat: I have not tried doing this myself. You might have trouble with flickering and have to freeze the layout of the screen/controls in order to let the paint happen. Just an idea anyway.

Barry

 

[EccentricDyslexic]

I want to animate this-

in these stages-

1 to show the flow from hlt to mashtun through a rotating pump
2 to show the rims flow
3 to show sparge flows and both pums rotating
4 to show flow to the boiler
5 to show flow to the FV

how can something so simple be so hard to do!

Steve

 

[phettebs]

Yeah, that's a little more complicated. You almost need to develop a "flow" class of controls to do this. Not necessarily a trivial thing! Let me think about it a little bit.

 

[EccentricDyslexic]

Thanks for the assistance! I was going to use dia to produce a series of sequential jpgs with the dashes moving along the line, time consuming no doubt!

Steve

 

[jamesb]

Which version of VB are you using?

 

Just out of interest, are you actually using 4 seperate pumps or have you just drawn it that way for simplicity?

 

[EccentricDyslexic]

I am using the latest 2010.

I have 4 pumps yes they are peristaltic pumps except the Marchmay which is just for rimsing!
The peristaltic pumps are used so i can acuratly contol how much fulid gets pumped from place to another. :thumb:

Steve :P

 

The peristaltic pumps are used so i can acuratly contol how much fulid gets pumped from place to another.

And simple little me thought a pump was a pump

 

[unclepumble]

The peristaltic pumps are used so i can acuratly contol how much fulid gets pumped from place to another.

And simple little me thought a pump was a pump

Nope You want to see how a centripetal pump works Eric, I have worked with different pumps for years, & when came across a centripetal my head was scratched for a bit. the pump parts do not move the fluid does :shock:

UP

 

when came across a centripetal my head was scratched for a bit. the pump parts do not move the fluid does

Now that's amazing; the middle part of a flower, acting as a pump! :whistle:

 

[ano]

Hi chaps, i generaly post on Jims, but not many seem as interesed in my automated home brew set up, so i thought Id try here too. :

You'll find that - welcome =)

I can't see vb being particularly suited for animation, any experience in flash? Seems to be what the cool kids were using last year.

If it helps pass the time post pics of your rig =)

 

[EccentricDyslexic]

You can see snaps of me rig in me sig, but not one to pass by an invitation

Software now written(!) althoug i am constantly adding more functionality!

Here are some screen shots-

Main screen-

Options screen-

Advanced config screen-

Youtube vids-

Filling mashtun-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjsHbo5CQdQ

Mashing with RIMS-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn2OqAnDWeA

Sparging-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcAbxRyQeDk

Cooling supply-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QaKchG-PG8

Note- the screen shots are not final yet, i have a new window from the main config screen that shows trhe current status of inputs digital and analog and this is where id like the animations to go.

Steve one last vid of the hop hopper test run - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvWo33so ... re=channel